Many countries have increased their climate ambitions, including net-zero by 2060. Gender equality is essential for just energy transition (JET). United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5 and 7 promote gender equality and access to sustainable energy for all. Women's participation in JET is crucial, yet they are underrepresented in the energy industry. This study promotes women's participation in the JET and strives to reconcile justice and inclusivity in the energy transition from upstream and downstream ASEAN beneficiaries with G7 precedents.  This paper aims to analyse the aspect of justice in the energy transition from women's perspectives in ASEAN and G7 countries. Most of the literature on women's issues in the energy sector is related to energy poverty and energy access. Hence, this paper will contribute to the literature on women's perspectives in the energy transition both in the workforce and in society as consumers. This paper analyses to answer a question on “how far women in ASEAN have participated in the energy transition (leadership roles to end-users) compared to women in G7 economies?”.   We use case studies with cross-analysis of ASEAN and G7 countries throughout this paper to demonstrate the contrast and similarity of gender equality in energy sector by exploring women’s experience as workers in the energy sector and as energy consumers (dirty to clean cooking – clean electricity).  We applied strategy basic research by conducting content analysis with intensive literature reviews, and additional aspects of women’s perspectives on this area, those who work and live in these regions to develop regional context. We also adopted the three tenets of justice by Jenkins et al (2016) and analysed the data collected using this framework.   This paper finds that ASEAN and G7 regions are almost at the same level in terms of women participation in ensuring a just energy transition. Despite having more women in the leadership roles in renewable energy sector, G7 is almost at the same level as ASEAN in their effort of improving women’s participation to accelerate and ensure a just transition in the regions.

Highlights • Individual investors prefer to have an investment with high ROI rather than a low-profit investment with environmental and social benefits. • Males invest and donate more money than females in terms of quantity and frequency. • People with a level of education above an associate degree (D3) have a significantly higher level of willingness to invest and donate to green project, compared to people with a lower level of education. • In general, people with a higher income level have a higher willingness to invest. However, there is no proof on the relationship between level of income and willingness to donate. • The age increases have a positive correlation with the willingness to invest in green project. Nevertheless, people >44 years old are more interested in donating than investing. • The younger generation (<44 years) tends to pick higher returns and short payback periods compared to the older generations (>44 years). • The respondents tend to invest and donate to the project located in the frontier, outermost, and least developed region (3T) even though the majority of the respondents are from Java, Madura, and Bali. • A social project such as health and education are preferable projects chosen by the respondents to invest and donate to, followed by the conservation, climate crisis, region’s welfare, and clean energy access. • Clean energy has not been seen as one of the preferred targets for green project investors and donors due to the poor knowledge of its direct impact on the environment and people’s welfare. • The average willingness to invest and donate is IDR 10,527,004 and IDR 2,893,079/person/annum with desired return on investment (ROI) and payback period (PP) of 5–8% 24 months, respectively. • Respondents prefer to donate more money to reward donations than donations without reward. • There is an enormous potential of crowdfunding as green project alternative financing, including renewable energy. The total investment could reach up to IDR 192 trillion (USD 13.4 billion)/annum and up to IDR 46 trillion (USD 3.2 billion)/annum for donation. • The main bottlenecks are poor financial literacy and the lack of platforms to facilitate public participation. • COVID-19 has decreased willingness to pay and invest due to income reduction and the uncertain economic recovery situation. However, it makes people pay more attention to the sustainability factor (shifting paradigm in investment).